


When the Boat Comes In

by lost_spook



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Community: fandom_stocking, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-04
Updated: 2011-02-04
Packaged: 2017-10-15 09:38:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/159488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/pseuds/lost_spook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Polly and Ben, waiting for a different sort of ship to come in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Boat Comes In

**Author's Note:**

> For Maggadin / akashasheiress.

They had spent so much time trying to get home – or just trying to stay alive – that neither of them had realised until they returned that ‘home’ only meant a speedy farewell for them both, as Ben had a more conventional ship to catch.

Ben sighed again at the thought, watching the approaching shore as they made their way back home (again). He and Polly had arranged to meet, but he couldn’t help but think that it was unlikely, after all these months. It had been different on the TARDIS when it had been just the two of them from their time. Once Pol was back with her friends, how long before she was taking pity on some other lucky bloke – someone much more at ease in her sort of world? It wasn’t as if he was anything special, after all.

But still he had to hope, so hard he thought something might break inside of him.

*

Polly had been absorbed with a very different worry, afraid that it might be crowded at the docks and that Ben would miss her, so she had put on her brightest coat and had the clever idea of buying some balloons from a man in the park she’d walked through on the way. She had thought of making a banner, but the balloons were much better, and far less likely to get in the way.

It was certainly working, she thought, looking around her. Polly smiled to herself, and waited.

*

Ben had been hardly daring to look at the few remaining people. He was so prepared for her not to be there, that even when he saw her, not only waving wildly but inexplicably holding a bunch of balloons, it took him a moment too long to believe it.

Everyone else looked so drab and business-like; in comparison, she stood out like a tulip growing in a vegetable patch.

Yeah, he thought, as he broke into a wide grin, making his way over, not anything like as quickly as he wanted. He wasn’t anything special; he was a right chump for thinking less of her than she deserved.

“Ben!” she said, flinging herself at him, and letting the balloons fly away: a few specks of colour in the dingy, grey sky.

*

“Sorry, Pol,” said Ben, releasing her eventually. “You’ve lost your balloons.”

Polly took his arm firmly. “Don’t worry about that. I don’t need them any more. Welcome home, Ben!”

“Thanks,” he said, with a grin. “Nice to be here.”

“Oh, and I’ve decided. If you go away again, I shall come, too, even if I have to cut off my hair and pretend to be a cabin boy. I mean it!”

“You would too,” he returned, his grin stretching further at the idea. “Pol, this ain’t the eighteenth century any more. No one in their right mind’s going to believe you’re a boy.”

Polly smiled at him. “Well, then. We’ll have to think of a better plan.”

“Too right,” agreed Ben, and kissed her again.


End file.
